SAH - Stress and Health Module Overview

 

Stress and Health

This unit explains how we respond to stress. A thorough understanding of these topics will serve to help you understand yourself and those around you every day, giving you a better chance of choosing your own responses to life instead of reacting blindly.

Essential Questions

• How do people react to stress?
• What are the most effective strategies for dealing with stress?

Key Words

1. Stress - the process by which we perceive and respond to certain events, called stressors that we appraise as threatening or challenging
2. Catastrophe - unpredictable large-scale events that can damage mental and emotional health
3. Canon's Flight or Fight Response - when the sympathetic nervous system increases heart rate and releases sugar and fat to mobilize the body to respond to stress by fleeing or fighting
4. General Adaptation Syndrome - Selye's concept of the body's adaptive response to stress in three stages - alarm, resistance, exhaustion
5. Alarm Reaction - the sympathetic system activates
6. Resistance - blood pressure and respiration remain elevated as adrenaline pumps through the system
7. Exhaustion - the body's energy is depleted and the person is more vulnerable to illness
8. Withdraw Response - when one deals with the stress of danger from another person by mentally and emotionally pulling back
9. Tend and Befriend Response - when one deals with stress by bonding so they can provide support for others and receive support from others
10. Oxytocin - a stress-moderating hormone that is released with cuddling
11. Psychophysiological Illnesses - a physical illness caused by mental or emotional issues
12. Psychoneuroimmunology - the study of how psychological, neural, and endocrine processes affect the immune system and health
13. Lymphocytes - the white blood cells that are part of the body's immune system
14. Stress-Related Vulnerability - the human immune system is suppressed by stress-related hormones
15. Coronary Heart Disease - the leading cause of death in the USA; when the blood vessels feeding the heart gradually close
16. Type A - competitive, driven, aggressive people
17. Type B - easygoing people
18. Pessimist - people who tend to assume the worst will happen
19. Optimist - people who tend to assume the best will happen  
20. Social Support - feeling liked and encouraged by intimate friends and family
21. Aerobic Exercise - sustained, oxygen-consuming activity that increases heart and lung fitness
22. Faith Factor - religiously active people tend to live longer, healthier lives than those who are non-religious

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